In the invention, stambomycin compounds can also be named sambomycin compounds as mentioned in the priority document EP 09290587.6 of Jul. 24, 2009.
Since the discovery of the first antibiotic secreted by a Streptomyces by Selman Waksman in 1942, many antibiotics have been developed by the pharmaceutical industry to treat bacterial infections.
However, the large use of single or multiple antibiotherapies have enhanced the emergence of resistant bacterial strains, which have developed mechanisms to resist said antibiotics. To date, some bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, are resistant to more than 4 different antibiotics.
So, there is a need to provide new antibiotics that can treat bacterial infections, in particular infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacterial strains.
Streptomycetes are Gram-positive, filamentous, soil-living bacteria that undergo a complex program of morphological differentiation. In addition to this singular multi-cellular morphogenesis, the members of the Streptomyces genus are well known for their ability to produce various compounds via secondary metabolism with important uses in medicine and in agriculture. Recent advances in the sequencing of Streptomyces genomes, and more generally those of actinomycetes, have highlighted the underestimated potential of these organisms to biosynthesise secondary metabolites. Indeed, the analysis of Streptomyces coelicolor revealed the presence of 22 gene clusters with deduced roles in the production of secondary metabolites whereas only half a dozen of them were identified before (Bentley et al., Nature, 2002, 417: 141-147; Challis and Hopwood, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2003, 100 Suppl 2: 14555-14561). Similarly, analysis of the Streptomyces avermitilis genome sequence revealed 30 secondary metabolite gene clusters (Ikeda et al., Nat Biotechnol, 2003, 21: 526-531). More recently, the genome sequences of non-Streptomyces actinomycetes such as the biotechnologically important Rhodococcus sp. RHA1 (Mc Leod et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2006, 103: 15582-15587.), the potent anticancer salinosporamide A producer Salinispora tropica (Udwary et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2007, 104: 10376-10381) and the erythromycin-producing bacterium Saccharopolyspora erythraea (Oliynyk et al., Nat Biotechnol, 2007, 25: 447-453) identified, in total, more than 70 clusters for the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. From these sequences, a genome mining approach allowed, for instance, to discover the tris-hydroxamate tetrapeptide siderophore coelichelin from S. coelicolor A3(2) (Lautru et al., Nat Chem Biol, 2005, 1: 265-269). In S. ambofaciens ATCC 23877, which was known to produce congocidine (Cosar et al., C R Hebd Seances Acad Sci, 1952, 234: 1498-1499) and spiramycin (Pinnert-Sindico, Ann Inst Pasteur (Paris), 1954, 87: 702-707), the sequencing of the left (1,544 kb; accession number AM238663) and right (1,367 kb; AM238664) arms of the linear chromosome, has unveiled eleven novel secondary metabolite gene clusters (http://www.weblgm.scbiol.uhp-nancy.fr/ambofaciens/, Choulet et al., Mol Biol Evol, 2006, 23: 2361-2369).
Except for the des cluster identified in the core region of the chromosome that directs the biosynthesis of desferrioxamines B and E, only the cch coelichelin biosynthetic gene cluster (Barona-Gomez et al., Microbiology, 2006, 152: 3355-3366) and clusters presumed to be involved in the biosynthesis of carotenoids are found to be the same as clusters present in the phylogenetically close relative S. coelicolor, highlighting the powerful ability of Streptomycetes to produce distinct secondary metabolites.
The international application WO2000/000618 discloses processes and materials for preparing novel polyketides, particularly 12-, 14- and 16-membered ring macrolides, by recombinant biosynthesis, and the novel polyketides thus produced. The process according to the international application discloses the use of specific genes of a type I PKS gene cluster for producing said macrolides.
Challis 2008 Microbiology vol 154, Part 6, p: 1555-1559 discloses methods developed to characterize the metabolic products of cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters.
Yadav et al. 2003 Nucleic Acid Research vol 31 no 13, p: 3654-3658 disclose a software SEARCHPKS allowing detection and analysis of polyketide synthase domains in a polypeptide sequence. SEARCHPKS can also aid in identification of polyketide products made by PKS clusters found in newly sequenced genomes.
Karray et al. 2007 Microbiology, vol 153 Part 12, p: 4111-4122 disclose the organisation of the cluster of genes allowing the biosynthesis of spiramycin by Streptomyces ambofaciens. 
The European application EP 0791655 discloses the characterization of a new polyketide gene cluster allowing the production of tylactone.
The international application WO 2006/045063 discloses the biosynthesis of novel polyketides by incorporating starter units that differ from the natural starter units used in the native production of polyketides.